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Edgecombe County
Memorial Libray
An Oral History of
Agriculture in Edgecombe County
I nterview
with
Hassell Thigpen
July 21 , 1987
By Joan S . Manning
Transcribed by W. M. Edwards
Original Transcript on Deposit at
Edgecombe County
Memorial Library
Joan Manning: Okay, Mr. Thigpen, let's go back just as
early as you can remember in agriculture, and tell us about
your earliest memories.
Hassell Thigpen: Joan, I reckon my earliest memories,
before I was really farming, would go back in the low
thirties, when I got finished high school in 1932 in the
middle of what everybody called the Great Depression. And
it was a depression. Nobody had any money. Peanuts was
selling for one cent, a cent and a quarter a pound. Cotton
was 'selling for fifteen cents. Hogs were selling for two or
three cents a pound. People had no money. Everything was
cheap. We had plenty to eat. You didn't have enough money
to really buy clothes.
As farming was concerned everything
was new, nobody ever heard of a tractor in those days.
Everything was done with hand labor. We had, at that time,
about maybe two hundred and seventy-five acres, twelve acres
of crop land, and probably had about ten families that
worked with me part of the year, in the summer,
women and children .
crops.
. trying to keep grass out of the
Farming was a slow, hard-working . . everything was
done by hand jobs. It was when you fed the mules, you make
the shuck corn. A neighbor of mine,
told me, I didn't have to shuck corn. That was a big
advantage because we had to feed the mules corn without
shucking. You had no electricity. We did have electricity
2
in our house but that was all. We had a Delco plant. You
had--everything was done by hand. You had to pump water for
mules by hand and mules drank a lot of water.
All the work was done was •.• people walking.
Everything was walked. You walked, everything you rode you
had to cart. You had one little ramshacked automobile for
the whole farm, no trucks, no pick-up trucks, no radios, no
television, no nothing. It's almost incomprehensible how we
lived then.
Strictly, people stayed home. You maybe got to the
store once a week to get groceries for yourself and the
farm, and that was about it. You hauled fertilizer from
on mule and wagon • . . like for • oh,
maybe eight bags, eight two hundred pound bags of
fertilizer, feed in two hundred pound bags. And that was
about half Had no floor analysis where sent a
man or a couple of men and took the wagon and mules four
miles to to get two hundred pounds of
fertilizer for
That's the kind of the way farming was. Everything was
by hand. Looking at it in our day and time, where we'd have
twelve hundred acres of crop land, and we handle it with
three, four and five men.
JM: How many--what crops were you farming at that
time, Hassell?
Thigpen: Of course, we had cotton and we had corn. We
growed oaks to supplement corn. You had to sorta make
enough corn in those days. You didn't know how to
a crop. You would cultivate corn grass, and
the last thing you'd do, you laid it by a one-row turning
plow, and that would plow all the roots off it. You didn't
know why it wasn't making any corn.
3
You had no soybeans in those early days. If you had
soybeans, just a few, you had a one-row mule drawn feed
pick-up but • • • you really never had no soybeans out of
there until about 1940. Remember, you had no combines. You
did have an old thrasher where--we had a binder where you
could put in little bundles and you
fed those to the mules. heads
out of the oats. We had a binder, didn't many people have a
binder. But, as you press the seed out--we
had a little to press with.
That was the day when I--going back a little further
now--probably in the late twenties, early twenties--see I
was born in 1915 and I remember we used to tend cotton right
here on the farm. You didn't haul it to like
you did later on.
JM: And you.
Thigpen: peanuts before.
JM: This was always your home? You have lived here
all of your life?
Thigpen: Yeah. Right.
JM: And how many brothers and sisters did you have?
Thigpen: We had five brothers and sisters.
JM: Well then, after you got out of high school, what
did you do, Hassell:
4
Thigpen: Three years I stayed home. Then I went away
to school for about four years, majored in economics. Came
back and went to farming, about 1940. That was about the
time that you had to mechanize a little bit. I remember one
day when I came home for the weekend and they had a little
farm over
it was
which was about
---------------you'd laugh at it now but that would be
a T-model Ford or even earlier in the--people compare them
with the automobile but that was back before there was a
plow behind it. That was turning four of land at
one time. And normal use of a mule--that was slowly--with a
man walking behind it . • • handle but one of those
weren't as wide as the was. That was
the beginning of mechanization. We got one little tractor
and I got a two-row cultivator. And it was quite a site to
see tractor fixed, and you could get up there
and ride it, and cultivate two rows at the time at a speed
that was some greater than a good mule would walk ••
JM: Well, did you always have a dream of coming back
to farm? Was this what you wanted to do when you went off
to school?
Thigpen: Naw, not really . I didn't--when I went to
school I didn't know what I wanted to do. I came back and
got into farming and found out I liked it and • just
stuck with it ••• and it's been good to us. We have no
complaints.
5
JM: Did you farm with a partnership with your father-­I
believe ••••
Thigpen: For a while, yeah.
JM: In the earlier years. And • then as time
passed, and how many years was it before you got married and
started your family?
Thigpen: I got married about, like when I was about
twenty-five years old, and we began to work out--I mean, we
added a little bit of land until we got up to seven hundred
acres, which is not as big enough farm as you need, today
the way farming is • • • in farming.
JM: But it's been enough for you to have a good life
and look out for it, basically yourself?
Thigpen: Yeah, I basically looked out for it myself,
really. In fact, I still do!
JM: Well, one of the things that you have been most
involved in that we are really interested in is the drainage
program that was in Edgecombe County that has meant so much
to farmers. Would you tell us about the beginning of that
and something about that happening?
Thigpen: Well, the beginning of drainage came, I
reckon when I was still • • • in high school or college and
just starting to farm. I remember Paul Warren. He is one
of the few people I remember that probably helped get that
started. They worked for the Farm Bureau but • they
6
were people not lazy, that first had--I don't remember
exactly who--I think Paul Warren was in it. I know Austin
Burnette stayed in the beginning. People that worked and
got this thing "channelized," with WTA labor, not
channelized with WTA labor but they--back there in the later
late thirties in the forties, they came along with WTA
labor. You might remember the WTA days when they made work
for the people. They just give them something, they'd let
them work for it.
And they came along and made all them creeks and
streams and cut all the trees out, great big 'ale
trees, with cross-cut saws--which nobody would know how to
use one today! And rolled those logs back and then •••
drag lines. D.L. Hope here at Conetoe, was one of those on
those drag lines. They first used a dredge boat to dig the
creek itself. They came from somewhere down toward the
river ••• that was a dredge boat that floated ••• up to
64 ••• then they just mounted the boat and put it on the
North side of 64 and went on with the creek. Then they put
the earliest drag lines in and did what they call what
"channelizing" our streams.
And that was the beginning of it. I had nothing to do
with that. Somewhere in the late sixties, as we said at
that time, John Mayo with Bethel, was very instrumental in
that, I remember. He was chairman of the drainage district
for a long time. was chairman of the
7
local Edgecombe County drainage district, District No. 29.
And there have been different good people in all these years
that have carried this work forward.
The drainage commissioners, they just set up a
district for this Conetoe Creek Watershed. They set up a
district and the commission didn't levy, for
whatever reason, they didn't levy enough tax to maintain it.
And it finally grew back up again. And in 1967 some of us
got together and ••• went to Raleigh and we had floods.
And they couldn't fix it for that. And to make a long story
short, we got under Public Law 566 where the whole creek was
done over again.
channelization which is a--once if
channelization at first, you don't have the fish, you don't
have the wildlife • it's open and naked!
But, after a few years the vegetation comes back, the
come back, and we have re-channelized drainage--a
lot more good duck and a lot more fish than we ever had
before. A lot more water!
Now, along with this channelization the second time,
the Soil Conservation Service--it was under their auspice-­the
drainage district, the Soil Conservation Service--they
channelized the entire system overduct, and they went
8
further than they had gone the first time. And to do a
complete six-four-five Conetoe Creek Watershed.
The watershed was opened up and
like Point that we live on--we
of --it was dug too deep!
here, the drains--they
on a tributary
live on a tributary
It was dug deep
right where you
live up there just beyond Mildred. And in so doing, it
dropped our water table so that we were hurt bad in crop
yields, maybe as much as a quarter mile from the stream in
dry weather. It wasn't the only thing but it would make it
worse.
And, out of that need for learning how to channelize
streams, the Soil Conservation Service and the Agricultural
Research Service--primarily the Agricultural Research
Service out of Florence, out of Raleigh, North Carolina
State University--the Soil Conservation Service (National
and State), the local drainage commissioners and fourteen
farmers • • • got together and the research people finally
put in a water retaining structure that they could
it with.
And in this--the fourteen farmers here where we live in
a two mile area here, they the commission to
not only put this structure in, which has been helpful to us
but it has retained water--and has eliminated some of the
problems we had to irrigate with, and it has also kept the
water table up so we don't dry out as quickly.
But they came in and put these little wells all over
our fields for about six or seven years. And monitored
those once a week. And they learned something about water
management, complete water management
One interesting thing they found out is that half of
the--you have about half the nitrate in your water if you
hold your canals up at a moderate level, constantly don't
let it go down so low. But they have learned water
management and what they have learned here is
g
over--they tell me about twenty-five million acres
around the Great Lakes, all up and down the East Coast from
Delaware and Maryland right on down to Texas and the coastal
plains • and five million acres--we have ten million
acres of it scattered all over the United States.
And they have really done some learning that with the
information they didn't have. This was basic new research
they did in this area. And I think it has been very
helpful, and there have been people all over the United
States here looking at it. They've got records of what they
have done, and And I think they
did a good job and ••• it has certainly given them a basis
to go into other areas. They make computer modeling of
what they've done. And they can--they 1 ve this computer
model, they can take any area they want to that is similar
to this one, with a water problem ••• And they have a
basis for them where they can work.
JM: Well, you have been doing a lot of work on your
end. Did they actually put these wells on some of your
fields?
lO
Thigpen: Well ••• they drilled this little three or
four inch pipe--it was something that you just measured with
the water--the water flow and how high it was. They would
read them once a week. They had little automatic recorders
on them. They just stuck them all out in all of these
areas. They started out at ---------1 s farm, and--
they went out three thousand feet on each side. They came
through my farm and went into these trees and dug the trees,
with and went on up They went-­they
took a two square mile block and put those wells three
thousand feet on each side of the canal. Well, they are not
a well pumped water out of it--just a-------
drills, they probably put in a plastic pipe where they could
tell what the water was doing.
JM: Hassell, we've talked a lot about this project.
I've been very interested in it, too, because it drained our
farm. I notice now the canals are getting heavily
vegetated. Do you think they will have to be cleaned out
again in years to come?
Thigpen: Jo, they still need to learn something about
weed control. I don't think they'd have to be cleaned out
in a long time. Maybe in sections where the weeds are
1 1
worse, they might just have to get those weeds out every--!
don't know--five, ten, fifteen years. But ••• basically
we have canals, I think, clean enough and deep enough so,
with just a minimal amount of weed control, I believe we
will stay in business!
JM: When I was reading this article about you I was
very interested in the land improvement practices. I had
never heard about this. Tell me about that a little bit.
It says that you had done a lot to improve the land on your
farm.
Thigpen: Sometimes you do--sometimes you're not sure
that you do things, not real sure whether you have improved
it or not. We have, as you know--we have land down here
that is very favorable. It has a little sandy ridge, then
we have a little small bottom. And we found that
years ago if we would take some of this sand from the ridges
and carry it down to those dark, land, it would
make it work a lot better for growing peanuts, particularly.
It would make better soil. You have to do that pretty
careful. You can't just take the top sand off. You got to
--or either invert it and take the bottom of the land plane
or use it as a carrier--or either you have to take it and
take the top soil off and then take the subsoil. luhat I'm
saying, you want me to put the top soil back.
Well, you can improve small areas that way if you tend
to them slow. The big improvement you can do is to grade
1 2
the land and use whatever you have to so that you
make your--make out those tiny fields larger.
JM: Going back to the first thing you talked about.
Now, how do you do this, Hassell? How do you get into that
and get--do you use a machine? Did you use machinery?
Thigpen: Yeah, yeah. They used, what they call a land
plane, which is a leveling and grading tool, about forty
feet long. And use a pan and move dirt with. You just use
the available equipment to move it with. The equipment, of
course, it wasn't available twenty-five or thirty years ago.
Nobody had ever heard of it. They have a laser thing now
where you can put a laser into it automatically. But, I
wouldn't want to use that because it would cut uniformly,
and you can't take too much out--they need some top soil
what land, will work the land down
under.
JM: Now, tell them a bit more in detail about tile.
You are the first farmer I've interviewed that's mentioned
that. These people are not going to understand when we just
mention it briefly.
Thigpen: Okay, tile drainage is something that the
farmer in Edgecombe County has been doing for a long time,
now. Down where we lived our soil was so variable, I reckon
we've put in a lot of tile. And tile is a drain for low,
wet areas for. • We put in a lot of tile, at least half
of it--there's nothing to it-- build up with
14
and improvement ••• and I understand have used irrigation
from a very early stage and really tell us the very earliest
form of irrigation up to the very most modern.
Thigpen: Well, we don't have some of the most modern
stuff made but we started out with carrying thirty
foot four inch pipe on your shoulders, irrigating. • You
had to tote them across the field and you had to lay down
your pipe to get from the water source from your field. And
that was a really hard back-breaking job. Hot! You got
that hundred degree temperature and put a piece of thirty
foot pipe on your shoulder • • • and after a while your
shoulder gets sore. But we did that for a while with
tobacco and some of the peanuts and ••• we finally bought
a little hose drag that you--it's still being used by a lot
of people. And then we put in three small center pivots and
they are the easy way to irrigate. They go out in a circle.
The nice thing about it--my sandy land--we have all in
the same field, we have land that's so sandy, that you put
over seven or eight tenths of water you'll eat out your
fertilizer. And if you put more than seven or eight tenths
of water on some parts of the field it'll run off too much.
And with a center pivot you can put water more frequently
and put it less ••. and costs about the same. Whereas
your hose drag or you'll haul those wheel machines ••• you
have to get the pipe to them or hook them to a hydrate and
work with them right much by hand. There is right much hand
1 5
labor involved and fairly expensive with your having to run
the high pressure to get them •••• You find yourself
wanting to put a little much water while you're there.
JM: And I believe this center pivot is permanent? In
one area?
Thigpen: Yeah, we have one little small one that we
tow up there in another location. There's about twenty-five
acres. We do twenty-five acres in one place and we tow it
to another location; there's about twenty-five acres there.
JM: But the ones that are permanent do how many acres?
Thigpen: Well about--one does about ninety and the
other one does about ninety-five.
JM: And this is permanent. So this is one time that
you needed to use these ditches that you were talking about
that you filled in with the pipe to make your fields bigger?
Thigpen: Yeah. You either have to eliminate the
ditches or make some kind of bridge so the wheels on the
pivots will cross. I have done--one pivot I eliminated
ditching by doing some--cutting a hill down and letting the
water drain out natural and put in an underground
drain pipe Those we built were the
JM: Well, I've heard them talk about bridges but I
don't understand what they are. Is it an actual little
bridge?
Thigpen: Yeah, just like you got a bridge across the
Tar River, but these things are made with anything--you put,
1 6
you can take timber and make them, like the old-time way.
Three foot of timber makes a bridge. Dr you put in pipe.
Just like you make a bridge for farm machinery cause it's-­just
like you make a bridge--like Billy- - like your husband
has got little bridges on his farm where you drive across
the ditch. It's the same deal!
JM: You make the little bridges because it
like that?
Thigpen: Something off of the wheel
runs on them.
JM: So the wheel.
it
Thigpen: You have these little wheels that things
travel on, and wherever that wheel is going to hit that
ditch, you know, you got to make a bridge.
JM: A bridge, so it can go--and it goes in a circle?
Thigpen: Yes, it goes in a circle.
JM: Gracious sakes!
Thigpen: irrigation equipment, called
"linear" that runs in a straight line. I'd like to
have one of those. We don't have that kind of land.
JM: I bet you would! This irrigation ..• how much
improvement have you seen in the yields that you are
getting, Hassell?
Thigpen: Well, in some years it's all the difference.
Other years it's very little. It just depends on the
weather. We have more than one time doubled yields of
17
peanuts. And we more than doubled corn a year or so.
JM: Well, you have really had an opportunity to see a
big change in the way people farm from the time you got out
of college and really got involved in it.
Thigpen: It really has, Jo. It's a different ball
game.
way .
You're about to the place now, you almost need some
. Federal Crop Insurance . . is a tool some people
use. But you need some guarantee or some minimal amount of
income because it takes money to
make a crop now. You do it all with chemicals and
machinery. There's very little hand labor. You couldn't
afford it; they don't like to work to start with. It's
gotten hot so . . I really can't blame them, I guess. But
. they don't want to work. They're not available . You
have to handle the chemicals in cultivation.
Speaking about chemicals, we've backed off it all we
can and use as much cultivation as we can and less
chemicals. But, like it is now, you to
make a profit . . fewer fertilizer.
JM: Well, let's talk about that a little bit. One of
the things they're the most interested in is what caused the
drop in tenant farming. And this kind of goes with what you
just said.
Thigpen: Tenant farming . . the year that I--I have
to think about it a little bit. But tenant farming was
basically where a family would take a pair or maybe two pair
18
of mules if he had a big family ••• and he would cultivate
"X" number of acres, thirty or thirty-five acres ••• and
that's about what he could do. Then he'd do hardly any work
during the wintertime. But he had his own little crop.
And when you mechanized and when that began to get-­just
go out of being--and people began to mechanize and do
bigger crops and bigger acreage and bigger machinery • • •
it didn't leave any room for the small farmer to do that.
We got out of tobacco that way a long time--must have been
about ten years ago. But, it was good for the people and
good for us cause • • • had to
mechanize. We didn't have enough tobacco so we sold our--I
sold half of my tobacco allotment for We kept
the other half and ••• one of my neighbors is operating
that now. But we didn't have enough tobacco to justify
mechanization.
If you can 1 t--there 1 s no practical way to do all your
work with machinery and then have a man say, working on
halves with you; it just doesn't pick up that work.
JM: Just would not pay.
Thigpen: And then the fact is that they don't want to
--You can't get the people now-a-days to go into the field
and do this and keep your hand labor work.
JM: Well, don't you think industry has had some
effect, too? Providing jobs for them that they could make
more money?
1 9
Thigpen: That area has helped some. Some of them who
have lost their jobs are interested. But I expect even more
than industrial development, I expect the system of welfare
we have in this country where people can make--get a fairly
decent standard of living--food, clothing and shelter-­without
really having to work. That, I expect, more than
anything else is.
Well, on the one hand it is taking care of the people
that have been replaced by machinery. On the other hand, it
gives them very little incentive to look for a job at what
we call--what they first started to call--menial task,
menial work.
JM: It really is a hard situation to address, because
you can go at it from so many angles. As we think about all
these changes that have taken place and how life used to be
in the community . . what kind of changes do you see in
the community life from twenty or thirty years ago?
Thigpen: They're very obvious, Joan. There's just a
tremendous change. It's a way of life that is almost young.
I can illustrate, I think. • The road we live on that
runs from 33 here at--you know, we live on a loop off of
NC42 • • 1608 I believe is the number of the road. It
runs from NC33 here down at Tar River, about a mile from
Conetoe. Well, today there are only two families that live
on the farm • . Myself and E.T. Warren • • that are
living and still farming the land.
20
All the rest of this five mile stretch of road--all the
rest of the land is being operated by somebody that lives
somewhere else. If E.T. had gone, I expect I would have
left, too. Now, look back twenty or thirty years • . and
I counted one day and there were eleven families living
here, raising kids, and sending kids to school, and handling
the land.
JM: On this one road?
Thigpen: On this one road. Now that--and that was the
people that were living here and owning land. Or renting in
term one. And then, they had a lot of--at that time--tenant
farmers . • maybe, like we had--I'll have to count up
here. One.
JM: I believe you said eleven a while ago.
Thigpen: I think so, something like that. But the
people are gone • . you take any road you want to .
and the people are gone! And they're not coming back! We
went in South America winter before last and . . our field
here, as much as we've done to improve our field here, and
I'm digging it like little checkable patches . . you could
drop by a farm and and he couldn't
even find it. And. • we've got these little small fields
and people have gotten to be big. It is--the number of
people in this neighborhood could take my--take my
and just swallow it and go on with it.
JM: So, you do see the future? You think farming is
21
going to get bigger and bigger?
Thigpen: You're going to have get big or get out!
There was a day we were considered a fairly large farm.
We're now a medium-size farm and this farm is not big enough
to be as efficient as it should be.
JM: Well, you've done a mighty good job with it!
Thigpen: I think--I will comment further. We've done
most of our production for seed, peanuts, and small grain--
not corn, but peanuts, small grain and soybeans . . and
that has helped a lot. And the way we farm we are able to
do very well, but down the road it looks like to me that
they're about--they are a few people that
of you and it probably won't be but about a thousand acres;
that is, in the foreseeable future, that is, today.
JM: Well, how about livestock, Hassell? Did you ever
have any livestock?
Thigpen: Yeah! We got up to seventy cows and
I sold part of them to your husband and got out of the
business!
JM: Well, I knew you didn't stay in it very long but I
did want to.
Thigpen: We were in there near about twenty-five
years, twenty or twenty-five years.
JM: Well, I didn't realize that.
Thigpen: I like cows. We had some nice cows. Yeah,
Billy bought some of them. They were pretty cows.
JM: Through the years, how has the Extension Service
and the Soil Conservation played a part in helping you
improve your farming operation?
Thigpen: The Extension Service has the information
available • • • about anything you need to know about
farming, if you will just use it. They're very helpful.
The Soil Conservation Service had good men. Rad
Bailey, John N. Edwards, Roland Wadsworth ••• the main
22
three that come to my mind right off hand that • did an
excellent job of coming to your farm and helping you with
drainage problems ••• whatever problems you had. You have
a forester--you have help by the foresters.
The Extension Service and the Soil Conservation Service
have been very helpful in our trying to build our land up
and get our stuff in better shape.
JM: I think we've had some real good agents in our
area, too.
Thigpen: Ain't no doubt about that. We have to pay
for the staff now.
JM: Yes, we really do ••• have some really good
staff. Okay ••••
[END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE]
[BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE]
JM: How do you think the relationship of country
people and people in town has changed?
23
Thigpen: I think they're better. I think that-­really,
I repeat--af course, I think it has changed for the
better. I think there is a better understanding. A lot of
people working their farm that just seeks
some awareness. I think that the people in town, the
cities, are aware of the fact of the problems farmers face
and are willing to help farmers through taxes, of you want
to put it that way. I think the changes have been for the
better, Jo. I think it's improved.
JM: Do you think this has given we country people a
better image of ourselves?
Thigpen: I never worried about that. I just--you
know ••••
JM: I know! That's a silly question to ask you!
[Chuckle!]
Thigpen: I never worried about that [Chuckle!] ••• I
just go on and do my thing and be myself. And if people
like me ••• it never bothered me, I guess.
JM: I believe you had the opportunity ••••
Thigpen: (Interposing) I do think, to answer your
question ••• a little bit further ••• I think to answer
your question is yes. There is no doubt about it!
JM: I think so. Yau never had an image problem, but
for some of the others I do think it has improved.
Thigpen: I don't believe they are even; I just never
worry about things like that.
JM: I know you served on the Board of Commissions, I
believe, for twenty-six years?
Thigpen: Almost! [Chuckle!]
JM: Almost twenty-six years.
Thigpen: Too long!
JM: And this gave you a chance to really influence
Edgecombe County. Would you tell us about that? Some of
the things, some of the projects you were involved in?
Thigpen: That's really--I like going back to one of
24
those a long time ago. But •.. I say it
was interesting. It was enjoyable, most of it, because we
had people that really--I had, I never really got out and
politicked, and try to hold the job as you know . I just
County that, they said they wanted me to
stay there a while and . the only way I would have had
that job, with no pay in it, no money it, no glory in it, a
lot of headaches. And if I hadn't had good help here at
home I couldn't have done it. pointed
out to me one day that it took a lot of time.
But the only reason for doing anything like that is to
i£1 to make--and this might sound corny in our day and
time--but ... see if you might make the County a little
bit better place to live and be. And • I was fortunate,
I had no opposition from anybody. I never promised anybody
25
anything that I wouldn't give. Just like if you would have
spoke to me and said, "How about so and so. . " My
stock answer was, "I appreciate your help but so far as what
I do I'm going to vote for what I think is best for the
County period!" I had the pleasure of doing that for almost
twenty-six years.
And we had good people on the Board. All of us needed
to be better, I guess, but we had good people that ... we
worked together. We weren't rubber stamped, we weren't
"yes" people, but ... any differences we had we would
settle that and then we'd go ahead with our business. And
we basically did what was best for the County. We helped
get industrial development. Some people might think that's
bad but over all I think it was good, because it would give
us more of a balanced economy. We got--we had a hospital up
that was millions of dollars ... we were putting about a
half a million dollars a year in the helping on the welfare
side of it. We sold that out to the HCA, which we have a
good hospital now that certainly--we've been out of the
hospital business what we did. That's one of
the last things we did. And I think one of the better
things we probably did.
I think one of the--just like all of it--I think the
thing we did that I think the people in the County really
a ppr e c ia t e d more tha n a ny one thing tha t we e ve r d i d .
was let's keep this program. I think everybody
26
liked that near about. It's been a funny thing.
But it was a long, interesting time and . . you had
problems that come up and you do the best you can!
JM: How about the Technical College, Hassell. Did you
have the opportunity through this to be in on the beginning
of that?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah. As far--you remember we started
clearing the camp out there?
JM: Uh-hummm.
Thigpen:
getting that started.
Fountain was very instrumental in
was also very
instrumental in getting this new courthouse we have. We
have a new Administrative Building, we got the Extension of
Good Homes. All the people
and I helped in the parking space.
Of course, I was really instrumental in that, because I
said, "I am not going to build down here unless we buy this
extra land and make some surface parking to take care of the
future!" I've seen no parking around the old Annex
Building.
We'd go see a County Agent and couldn't find anywhere
to park. I was adamant. I said, "That's one time I'm not
going to go along with anything with any more building like
the Administration Building unless we supply adequate
parking." Even now we have a little bit more than we need
but I know that little by little it is going to be used more
and more. And the County government, I reckon is going to
keep on growing; if it does we'll need them all one day.
27
But Edgecombe County is in good shape in relation to
buildings. Your children will be older than we are before-­or
as old as I am--before we will need more space, I expect.
Maybe not even then!
JM: Well • elaborate a little bit more on the
Technical College.
Thigpen: Well the Technical College is kind of like
farming. You know, we didn't even have one and then we
started out there with, you know, it just stayed on that
prison camp out there and • • they sold us that real cheap
and whatever. It wasn't much money and we renovated some of
the buildings and built a little bit. And they started
expanding. And with the change in the work styles--that's
not a good word, not what you expected--but the way
everything is so technical involved--one industry going out
and another one coming in •••• The Technical College has
been, the last several years, and I expect maybe
increasingly--it is very necessary for the community if the
people are going to live and be able to change jobs and get
a better job. I think it's been very helpful.
JM: When the Technical College was first started, was
it in Rocky Mount?
Thigpen: That was in Tarboro. All the--the old prison
camp, we started out at the old prison camp with--we'd
renovated one of those buildings.
28
I think it's still being
used and I believe built one if my memory.
JM: They used some houses.
the houses out there.
I believe you used some of
Thigpen: Yeah, I think so. And it started, then
little bit by little big enlarged. And of course, you know,
the Rocky Mount stores--they would have really gone all out
over there.
JM: I believe you had a special honor. Was it in
1971?
Thigpen: That was a long time ago!
JM: That's the best I can figure out. Was that the
year you and your family were chosen "National Farm Family?''
Thigpen: It's been a lot longer than that! Because--I
remember Daddy was living then.
time.
He has been dead a long
JM: I couldn't figure out from the information.
Thigpen: It must have been at least--it was right
after this house was first built, remodeled or whatever we
did to it. It must have been at least twenty-five years
ago. But we were honored by the Progressive Farmer and the
Extension Services. I think they called it "National Farm
Family" or something like that. They had to pick on
somebody, you know!
JM: Well, you're an humble man and you don't like-­Hassell
doesn't like to tell of how many honors that he has
won but I'm not going to let him leave out that! I
remember, they had ••••
Thigpen: That was appreciated! It was nice. And we
appreciated it!
JM: Hassell has worked hard!
Thigpen: I agree with that! [Chuckle!]
29
JM: I believe in the article that they had--Mr. Powell
said that "There's an old adage that there's more in the man
than in the land!" And as I have talked to Hassell I've
certainly thought about that. Because he's used every way
to improve himself.
Thigpen: Yeah, like Jack told me one time,
"You've got to work a little harder down here to make a
living than you did anywhere in the County." We've got good
soil. In fact, Jack said, "It's like ••• if let up
the crops wouldn't be any good •
We had good land!" [Chuckle!] we
labored!
JM: You think maybe having to work hard has not been
bad for you?
Thigpen: Naw! Hard work never hurt nobody! Worrying
about things hurt! But ••• we have had the--we 1 ve
probably had to use a little higher level of management and
has a little better weather. And after irrigation, with
someone like me working and paying • cause way down here
in our sandy soil, you know, where you really got to--if I
30
had all really good land I'm not sure, judging the future by
the past, that irrigation is very profitable. But I know
the kind of land we have down here, it is going to pay off.
JM: You spoke about that you were involved in
certified seed ••• these people that listen to this tape
are really not going to know what you mean by that. Would
you mind elaborating on that a bit?
Thigpen: North Carolina has two agencies that work
with but not a part of North Carolina State University. One
of them is called North Carolina Foundation of Seed
Producers. They take the seed that--new varieties--! mean
brand new varieties • They take the breeder right out
for those seeds developed by plant breeders at State up here
and also other parts of the Southeast • • • and increase
those seeds. They take a breeder seed and they make what
they call a foundation seed; then that goes into the regular
seed, and then that goes into all these different yields, it
goes into a certified seed which is what most farmers plant.
After they certify it one year then it goes back to just
being a seed and you can still plant it if you want to. But
the people go back and get this, you know, close into the
breeding.
Then they have the North Carolina Crop Improvement
Association. This year is the They check
the stuff in the field to be sure it's pure, not mixed up,
quality there. Then they check the trade
31
product. So people are saying, "We used to trade ourselves
certified seed." We don't much anymore. I do most of my
growing now for the Foundation Seed people which is--well, I
take their breeder crops and increase them or I take their
foundation seed which makes the worst seed • • • which is
what people that, like--they have a sign out here--if you
wanted to have peanuts grown either by a regular seed
they have them. The farmers grow them or grow them
themselves and make what they call "certified" seed.
that's what the farmer will buy in Edgecombe.
And
JM: Well, do you have to have any special practices in
your farming to be qualified to do this?
Thigpen: Experience helps. You have to watch
rotation. You have to watch very closely.
They have strict tolerances. Like peanuts; you have to have
a three-year rotation at least or else plant the same
variety. You don't have purity. And in all that effort is
made to--the two organizations do a good job state wide of
getting the farmers in North Carolina a good seed.
Now, private companies, especially if they--they did a
patent law in Washington a few years ago • • • are doing a
tremendous amount of dev e loping seed, and I e xpe c t a s f ar a s
the public land. And that's more
and more private plant breeders now. And they handle their
own stuff in drawing the contract; t hey're doing themselves
or what have you. It's big business. It's going into big
business now. There are several farmers in the state that
have way over ten thousand acres of seed,
JM: But you don't have to actually do anything about
the pollination ••••
32
Thigpen: I do nothing about that. I get--I take the
seed that they bring me ••• maybe fifty pounds, maybe for
five thousand or whatever • and increase those seed.
Our responsibility is to keep them clean and pure!
JM: And keep the weeds out of them!
Thigpen: I mean keep them clean. I'm thinking about
pure in relation to a variety of mixtures. Of course, you
have to do a good job of growing your crop. You do that
normally but you have the further responsibility; you have
to keep up with them ••• to make maps and you got to know
where you planted the row. You have to follow this very
closely. It's a little extra management detail, but it's
worth the trouble.
JM: I believe you said in your present farming
operation you were working how many men?
Thigpen: Well, about five people is what it amounts
to.
JM: And you're still ••• "The Chief!" You still
take a very active part in your farming operation?
Thigpen: Yeah, more or less. More I guess rather than
less.
JM: Do you still drive a tractor and ••••
Thigpen: A little bit, sometimes. I still do
things, like the land playing, working
some
33
and I cultivate some things now, of course. I don't do one
hundredth of what I used to do.
JM: But you still enjoy getting up on a tractor?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah! I think--I like to land plane in
the wintertime when you are leveling and grading • • • I do
it with my eyes, mostly, work. I work,
you know, with the big bucks we have sometimes and •
Also • • • like the other week we got--everybody was busy so
I cultivated about a half a day's I still
like to do it. I don't do it that much. You know, when you
get old you'll see, you'll find out in a few years!
JM: Well, when you have moved into mechanization--Now,
you're using five men and how many tractors do you use in
your farm, Hassell?
Thigpen: We have--there are two large ones, three
medium-sized, and
are
there's seven tractors. Two of them
300, about thi r ty, thirty-five
years old. I still use those for little odd, piddling
work. We have two big, heavy tractors that we do our area
planting and land preparation. We have three
medium-sized tractors that do our cultivating, peanut
plowing and stuff like that. Peanut plowing
34
JM: Are you doing most of your work now four-row?
Thigpen: Yeah. We haven't gone to six-row. I debated
going to six-row. I probably won't--I'll probably keep on
four-row. Six-row will--we are borderline big enough for
six-row to be efficient . . but we get by pretty well with
four rows so we probably are going to stick with it.
get older you don't want to change too much!
As you
JM: I believe I read something that you were doing a
little bit of "no-till" planting. Is that correct?
Thigpen: Yeah, we do some no-till planting. A lot of
people are doing that. No-till has a lot of advantages; it
has a lot of disadvantages. I don't think we need to stress
it here but . . it's better in some ways. You have to use
more chemicals. You have to discern or you don't get
control of some grass and weed like you
would in cultivating it. And we , low-till on a
limited basis. Let's put it that way.
JM: It does help conserve moisture not to till the
land?
Thigpen: Yeah, that helps some. Of course, after it
gets dry--no-till has a lot of advantages and some
disadvantages . . are made with the seed and everything, I
started using it on a limited basis • maybe like ten or
fifteen of land a year.
JM: You would never do your certified seed that way?
Thigpen: Well, it depends on what the worst--soybeans,
35
yeah.
JM: Well, when you do it, do you spray and till the
area that you're going to plant in and turn it brown? I've
seen some that.
Thigpen: I'm going to get in the dog-house right now
because we still burn our straw! It's not without due
thought . . we have disease on some of my land and • . I
had camp authority, the soybean man from State College come
down .
State!
. North Carolina State University, excuse me,
Years ago, some years ago we were having a weed
problem and . . I don't like to burn. We
terribly, but we do burn our--most of the time, not
all of the time • . most of the time we burn our oats and
wheat and barley straw. It's--actually, all
pick up your very best by that
particular way of handling it. But it eliminates the risk
of disease and • . it cuts application
quite a bit when you do that.
JM: Well, we talk about yields.
Thigpen: I don't recommend people to burn. It's
I was , we do need the organic
~~~~~~~~~~~
but we can make more, a lot better yield and a lot less
disease • • and probably everything was several years
better off in the long run for people around here. Of
course, I wouldn't do it if I didn't think so.
JM: All the new tractors that we have talked about,
tell us a little bit about how this has increased your
yields.
36
Thigpen: I reckon the basic yield increase has come
from the plant fields that have produced a plant that would
just naturally yield more, if you treat it properly. And
then you . a lot of little things you do that help
increase your yield. Like you put a little
on peanuts,
for at
your You spray them
It's just a lot of little
things you do that increase your yield. But the foundation
for that was a seed that is paid for in producing a bigger
crop.
JM: Talking about the yield, how much •.. how do you
increase--talk about peanuts. How much of the yields have
increased in peanuts? I know in that article about you it
was twenty-one . • • I believe you were making twenty-one
hundred pounds when you were "National Farmer.'' And that
was really high.
Thigpen: That was high then and we have made as high
now--I'm talking about the farm average, not just ~field
but the farm average. We have been running--the last
se vera l year s --we've be en running the l as t s ev eral yea r s - ­well,
it must have ..• forty-five hundred pounds,
sometimes thirty-eight hundred •...
JM: I believe you s a id you had in c re ased you r peanut
yield to up as high as forty-five hundred pounds?
37
Thigpen: Yeah. Farm average. That would not have
been possible with the varieties. When I said "started
farming," if you made fifteen or sixteen hundred, you had a
good crop. And until they somewhere it, I
don't remember, somewhere in the forties they had their
first improved peanut. I think it started out the NC-2, I
believe. But without these improved varieties we could not
grow the yields we do now. You would not make the yield we
do now unless you did a lot of practices . . because you
improved fertilization, long on fertilization. . And a
lot of cultural and chemical practices. • But basically,
you can't make--you have to have a good seed, high yield of
seed to make a high yielding crop.
JM: This, too, has increased the expense of planting
because these seed are much more expensive, aren't they?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah! Of course, the price of peanuts
has gone up. That's probably the basic • . reason.
Peanuts have gone up from one cent to a pound to about
thirty cents a pound.
JM: Well, it's been around the same price for a right
good while, though, haven't they?
Thigpen: Yeah, they They do about
seventy percent of the yield now. There ain't no difference
. slight increase.
JM: And in soybeans, how do you see the yields. How
much have they increased? I know you haven't planted
38
soybeans as long as you have peanuts.
Thigpen: When I first started farming we had a little
combine. We pulled it tractor. I would go all
over this end of the County cutting beans for people. And
talking about what way we were in • . I would charge a man
two dollars an acre and one eighth of the soybeans. A total
then • . if he had a field that made fourteen or sixteen
bushels he would feel pretty lucky. He might make fifteen
or twenty dollars a day if he was lucky. And that was real
money then!
But the soybean yields now • . we have averaged as
high as forty bushels two or three times in the last ten
years, over the whole farm. We made it as high
fields, maybe in the fifties . • but, whenever we had--the
first year we'd make--most years we would make anywhere from
thirty to thirty-five • . Well, we plant most of our beans
now. So that's a strike against you. They
don't yield much as the other one • But we can
hope to make forty bushels. • I think we've averaged
forty bushels twice only in the last ten years.
been as low as twenty-five or thirty,
here.
And we have
JM: And how about corn? Are you still planting corn?
Thigpen: Yeah. Corn, if you can irrigate it proper l y,
of cour s e • • where you us ed to make--I don't know wha t we
made way back there, practically nothing, maybe twenty-five
39
bushels . . back there in the thirties or forties. But
now if you irrigate corn and you irrigate it properly, and
have good weather, you can make a hundred and fifty or
seventy-five bushels, and we've done that. We used to make
more than that. Some people do but . • I know if we have
a hundred and sixty-seven bushels here from the field, we're
pretty happy.
JM: Right. Well, like you said before, your land
doesn't have that deep fertility.
Thigpen: We don't have basic good corn land. But
we've had • . I remember, without irrigation, we didn't
ever make over a hundred bushels for average. And since
we've had irrigation we've done substantially better than
that. Sometimes I make, like a hundred and forty average or
something.
JM: So you.
Thigpen: We don't irrigate
trying to say.
corn is what I'm
JM: But you do irrigate corn, peanuts and soybeans?
Thigpen: And cotton.
JM: And cotton! I had forgotten about cotton! But
you are growing cotton.
Thigpen: And even sometimes • • let me explain it
this way, Jo. Corn at the price it is now and soybeans and
small grain • . you cannot afford to buy irrigation
equipment for them. They will not pay for it. But •
40
peanuts and cotton and tobacco •.• if you want to irrigate
tobacco, cure tobacco. Tobacco and peanuts come near
paying for irrigation better than anything else we have.
And corn is good but after you've got irrigation, then you
use it for whatever, since you are able •.• or on whatever
crop you might have on that land that year.
JM: You're going back to management now.
Thigpen: Right!
JM: You try to get everything out of it that you
possibly can.
Thigpen: Right!
JM: Can you think of anything else now that you might
like to discuss?
Thigpen: I was thinking while ago about the ..•
about how life was way back there. This man operating
down there. I told him what I was doing. He
said, "I'd like to sit down; I like to hear people talk
about these days way back there." And ••• it does go
back. It is a different, completely different ball game.
People had no money then. And I think most people
they sure were more satisfied than they are today ••
They don't have everything pulling at them. People don't--
you keep on a human being, don't take all the
time .•• and see what--I almost think, watching the
national news on TV ••• and normally it will be--we have
~
41
JM: Well, this is one thing I had especially wanted us
to bring out in these interviews. I'm really glad you
brought that out • • • is that we were happy back in those
days! We didn't have any money but we were happy!
Thigpen: Maybe we just didn't know any better!
JM: Well, maybe •••.
Thigpen: And, basically everybody was broke!
JM: But we did a lot of things for fun!
Thigpen: And see • when I first started up, you
didn't even have radios for a long time, much less
television! Television is what? Twenty-five, thirty years
old? It's a new thing! You had ..• it was, for people
that lived back in the rural areas •.. we'd get to town
once a week, which was a treat for most people!
JM: Right!
Thigpen: When I was a kid I didn't go to town much!
JM: My daddy used to put the trailer behind the car
and put seats on it •.• take all the colored folks to town
on Saturday, and that was a big trip for the week!
Thigpen: It's right interesting. We went down to
Brazil in the area • • • a year ago last
February .•• and most of the tobacco ••. people tobacco
farming in Brazil--that whole area on our consensus, because
a bunch of these farmers talked about it ••• they are now
just about like Edgecombe County was in 1940! Here in 1987,
1986, the people--the tobacco farmers in Brazil, they cure
42
with wood. They are just beginning to get electricity out
at some places. They are just beginning to get water in
some places. They are just beginning to get transportation.
Some of them are still breaking their land with ox. Some
people carry their tobacco to market with an ox. We saw
these things! That's 1986 I'm talking about!
JM: And we can't compete with the expenses that we
have farming.
Thigpen: Oh! They think if they are making--they make
anywhere from thirty to a hundred dollars a month on farm
wages down there • • • depending on what kind of work they
are in. And they have a lot of land ..•. But, we think
here with all the advantages we have now and the things-­paved
roads, everything--and we just take things for
granted. But it really was--it kind of shook me up a little
bit to go down there in the country ••. in some ways they
are as modern as ••
JM: Well, how many allotments •.. can they plant all
of anything .•.•
Thigpen: About anything they want to ••• and
Government encourages it. They got plenty of land.
the
They
got plenty of land already opened up. We opened up two
hundred mile acres for tenant labor. And their soil is
good! And they process good tobacco. We got a picture of
it her e . I showed two weeks ago.
And it's just incredible! But the pattern is--the big
farmer down there is mechanized just like it is here!
don't have the , they have railroads.
~~~~~~~~~-
43
They
But,
the tobacco farmer down there . • his life is just about
like Edgecombe County was in 1940. They are just beginning
to get out a little bit.
JM: Well, now, as we kinda put this all together .
what do you see as the future for agriculture?
Thigpen: I think agriculture in Edgecombe County, if
they can teach a program that will let our tobacco--and I
think we will be growing tobacco in the future--and our
peanuts and our cotton • • be priced as they are now,
which is somewhat on a path in line with simply the American
standard of living . . we can make a good living! With
the price of corn and soybeans and small grain the last two
or three years • . there's no way that you can survive .
We have the Government subsidy program that is not going to
keep on and those crops will not be--you could not grow them
without it. You actually lose money. There's very little
to be made in them as it is now.
So whether Edgecombe County here in Eastern Carolina
survives down the road, in my judgement is going to be-­we've
got to compete because we are going--naturally, we are
talking about all of the world.
survive is going to depend on how we,
with other areas in the country .
And whether we
our land, stacks up
how much--the policy
of the American Government is going to determine whether we
44
survive here and whether we can survive--that policy of the
American Government is going to want "X" number of bushels
and pounds of crops.
Whether we will still be growing them or not, it
depends on our ability to compete with other States of the
United States. Jo, that's what I really think! I'm not
that all sure where we are going to come out in this thing.
There are areas in the United States, you can make a hundred
and fifty bushels of corn with no irrigation. You got
to make forty or fifty or sixty bushels a day . . and we
can't compete for that. But the Government is going to help
us! The Government is going to guarantee thirty or thirty­five
or cheat the American public. And, if we can keep
things like tobacco and peanuts and cotton that we can grow
about as good as anybody. . Now, we have it totally
under control • • I think we have a good chance to have a
viable export. Without it • • I don't know!
JM: Well, what do you see for yourself? Do you feel
you will continue to farm as long as you want to?
Thigpen: Well, for me, I'm happy. To put it simply,
I'm happy. We've had some problems that you know about.
I'm happier working and as long as I'm physically able and
reasonably mentally competent, I will probably keep on
working • • rather than just turn it over to somebody
else. I'm kinda peculiar. I like my work done kind of like
I want it! Have it neat and clean! And I just as soon be
in it as to turn it over to somebody else. In fact, I'd
rather.
JM: Well, you've always had a reputation for keeping
everything in its place. Can you really find things that
good that you need? Do you know where your stuff is?
Thigpen: Most of, most of the time!
JM: Most of the time! Well, you're real lucky that
you do!
Thigpen: It's simple. It's about as easy to keep
stuff straight as it is to straighten it up two or three
times a year! There is not much difference in the work
involved! All you need--
don't have too many bushes and have a good mowing machine
and you can keep a lot of stuff straight!
JM: Well, you have been lucky to have all your stuff
right together!
Thigpen: We all farmed--that ought to be mentioned.
45
What little expensive land I bought ..• the furthest land
I have away from where I live is about two and one half
miles. And that's facilitates farming. It helps a lot.
JM: Makes it a lot easier when you can get out and see
it all pretty quickly.
Thigpen: It sure makes a difference. You get to it
with a machine in a hurry. It makes a big difference.
JM: Well, I sure do appreciate you taking your time
out of this busy morning. And I know this information is
..
46
going to mean a whole lot to people. Can you think of
anything else now, before we close our interview?
Thigpen: No, Jo, I think this is good work they're
doing. I would think that these tapes you've been making
will be interesting to a lot of people down the road
someday. I hope so!
JM: Well, thank you again for letting me come to your
house!
Thigpen: "Dkay-doe-ky," lady!
[ENO OF INTERVIEW]
Interviewee:
Interviewer:
Hassell Thigpen
Joan Manning
Date: July 21, 1987
According to the records from a family book all the grandparents as well
as Bettie Daniel and Clayton Thigpen attended private schools but I do
lqlow.the number of years . They attended Wilkerson Academy in Tarboro,
Williamston Academy, Tarboro Female Academy and Clayton Thigpen also
attended Davis Military School , Winston-~alem, N.C.

Edgecombe County
Memorial Libray
An Oral History of
Agriculture in Edgecombe County
I nterview
with
Hassell Thigpen
July 21 , 1987
By Joan S . Manning
Transcribed by W. M. Edwards
Original Transcript on Deposit at
Edgecombe County
Memorial Library
Joan Manning: Okay, Mr. Thigpen, let's go back just as
early as you can remember in agriculture, and tell us about
your earliest memories.
Hassell Thigpen: Joan, I reckon my earliest memories,
before I was really farming, would go back in the low
thirties, when I got finished high school in 1932 in the
middle of what everybody called the Great Depression. And
it was a depression. Nobody had any money. Peanuts was
selling for one cent, a cent and a quarter a pound. Cotton
was 'selling for fifteen cents. Hogs were selling for two or
three cents a pound. People had no money. Everything was
cheap. We had plenty to eat. You didn't have enough money
to really buy clothes.
As farming was concerned everything
was new, nobody ever heard of a tractor in those days.
Everything was done with hand labor. We had, at that time,
about maybe two hundred and seventy-five acres, twelve acres
of crop land, and probably had about ten families that
worked with me part of the year, in the summer,
women and children .
crops.
. trying to keep grass out of the
Farming was a slow, hard-working . . everything was
done by hand jobs. It was when you fed the mules, you make
the shuck corn. A neighbor of mine,
told me, I didn't have to shuck corn. That was a big
advantage because we had to feed the mules corn without
shucking. You had no electricity. We did have electricity
2
in our house but that was all. We had a Delco plant. You
had--everything was done by hand. You had to pump water for
mules by hand and mules drank a lot of water.
All the work was done was •.• people walking.
Everything was walked. You walked, everything you rode you
had to cart. You had one little ramshacked automobile for
the whole farm, no trucks, no pick-up trucks, no radios, no
television, no nothing. It's almost incomprehensible how we
lived then.
Strictly, people stayed home. You maybe got to the
store once a week to get groceries for yourself and the
farm, and that was about it. You hauled fertilizer from
on mule and wagon • . . like for • oh,
maybe eight bags, eight two hundred pound bags of
fertilizer, feed in two hundred pound bags. And that was
about half Had no floor analysis where sent a
man or a couple of men and took the wagon and mules four
miles to to get two hundred pounds of
fertilizer for
That's the kind of the way farming was. Everything was
by hand. Looking at it in our day and time, where we'd have
twelve hundred acres of crop land, and we handle it with
three, four and five men.
JM: How many--what crops were you farming at that
time, Hassell?
Thigpen: Of course, we had cotton and we had corn. We
growed oaks to supplement corn. You had to sorta make
enough corn in those days. You didn't know how to
a crop. You would cultivate corn grass, and
the last thing you'd do, you laid it by a one-row turning
plow, and that would plow all the roots off it. You didn't
know why it wasn't making any corn.
3
You had no soybeans in those early days. If you had
soybeans, just a few, you had a one-row mule drawn feed
pick-up but • • • you really never had no soybeans out of
there until about 1940. Remember, you had no combines. You
did have an old thrasher where--we had a binder where you
could put in little bundles and you
fed those to the mules. heads
out of the oats. We had a binder, didn't many people have a
binder. But, as you press the seed out--we
had a little to press with.
That was the day when I--going back a little further
now--probably in the late twenties, early twenties--see I
was born in 1915 and I remember we used to tend cotton right
here on the farm. You didn't haul it to like
you did later on.
JM: And you.
Thigpen: peanuts before.
JM: This was always your home? You have lived here
all of your life?
Thigpen: Yeah. Right.
JM: And how many brothers and sisters did you have?
Thigpen: We had five brothers and sisters.
JM: Well then, after you got out of high school, what
did you do, Hassell:
4
Thigpen: Three years I stayed home. Then I went away
to school for about four years, majored in economics. Came
back and went to farming, about 1940. That was about the
time that you had to mechanize a little bit. I remember one
day when I came home for the weekend and they had a little
farm over
it was
which was about
---------------you'd laugh at it now but that would be
a T-model Ford or even earlier in the--people compare them
with the automobile but that was back before there was a
plow behind it. That was turning four of land at
one time. And normal use of a mule--that was slowly--with a
man walking behind it . • • handle but one of those
weren't as wide as the was. That was
the beginning of mechanization. We got one little tractor
and I got a two-row cultivator. And it was quite a site to
see tractor fixed, and you could get up there
and ride it, and cultivate two rows at the time at a speed
that was some greater than a good mule would walk ••
JM: Well, did you always have a dream of coming back
to farm? Was this what you wanted to do when you went off
to school?
Thigpen: Naw, not really . I didn't--when I went to
school I didn't know what I wanted to do. I came back and
got into farming and found out I liked it and • just
stuck with it ••• and it's been good to us. We have no
complaints.
5
JM: Did you farm with a partnership with your father-­I
believe ••••
Thigpen: For a while, yeah.
JM: In the earlier years. And • then as time
passed, and how many years was it before you got married and
started your family?
Thigpen: I got married about, like when I was about
twenty-five years old, and we began to work out--I mean, we
added a little bit of land until we got up to seven hundred
acres, which is not as big enough farm as you need, today
the way farming is • • • in farming.
JM: But it's been enough for you to have a good life
and look out for it, basically yourself?
Thigpen: Yeah, I basically looked out for it myself,
really. In fact, I still do!
JM: Well, one of the things that you have been most
involved in that we are really interested in is the drainage
program that was in Edgecombe County that has meant so much
to farmers. Would you tell us about the beginning of that
and something about that happening?
Thigpen: Well, the beginning of drainage came, I
reckon when I was still • • • in high school or college and
just starting to farm. I remember Paul Warren. He is one
of the few people I remember that probably helped get that
started. They worked for the Farm Bureau but • they
6
were people not lazy, that first had--I don't remember
exactly who--I think Paul Warren was in it. I know Austin
Burnette stayed in the beginning. People that worked and
got this thing "channelized," with WTA labor, not
channelized with WTA labor but they--back there in the later
late thirties in the forties, they came along with WTA
labor. You might remember the WTA days when they made work
for the people. They just give them something, they'd let
them work for it.
And they came along and made all them creeks and
streams and cut all the trees out, great big 'ale
trees, with cross-cut saws--which nobody would know how to
use one today! And rolled those logs back and then •••
drag lines. D.L. Hope here at Conetoe, was one of those on
those drag lines. They first used a dredge boat to dig the
creek itself. They came from somewhere down toward the
river ••• that was a dredge boat that floated ••• up to
64 ••• then they just mounted the boat and put it on the
North side of 64 and went on with the creek. Then they put
the earliest drag lines in and did what they call what
"channelizing" our streams.
And that was the beginning of it. I had nothing to do
with that. Somewhere in the late sixties, as we said at
that time, John Mayo with Bethel, was very instrumental in
that, I remember. He was chairman of the drainage district
for a long time. was chairman of the
7
local Edgecombe County drainage district, District No. 29.
And there have been different good people in all these years
that have carried this work forward.
The drainage commissioners, they just set up a
district for this Conetoe Creek Watershed. They set up a
district and the commission didn't levy, for
whatever reason, they didn't levy enough tax to maintain it.
And it finally grew back up again. And in 1967 some of us
got together and ••• went to Raleigh and we had floods.
And they couldn't fix it for that. And to make a long story
short, we got under Public Law 566 where the whole creek was
done over again.
channelization which is a--once if
channelization at first, you don't have the fish, you don't
have the wildlife • it's open and naked!
But, after a few years the vegetation comes back, the
come back, and we have re-channelized drainage--a
lot more good duck and a lot more fish than we ever had
before. A lot more water!
Now, along with this channelization the second time,
the Soil Conservation Service--it was under their auspice-­the
drainage district, the Soil Conservation Service--they
channelized the entire system overduct, and they went
8
further than they had gone the first time. And to do a
complete six-four-five Conetoe Creek Watershed.
The watershed was opened up and
like Point that we live on--we
of --it was dug too deep!
here, the drains--they
on a tributary
live on a tributary
It was dug deep
right where you
live up there just beyond Mildred. And in so doing, it
dropped our water table so that we were hurt bad in crop
yields, maybe as much as a quarter mile from the stream in
dry weather. It wasn't the only thing but it would make it
worse.
And, out of that need for learning how to channelize
streams, the Soil Conservation Service and the Agricultural
Research Service--primarily the Agricultural Research
Service out of Florence, out of Raleigh, North Carolina
State University--the Soil Conservation Service (National
and State), the local drainage commissioners and fourteen
farmers • • • got together and the research people finally
put in a water retaining structure that they could
it with.
And in this--the fourteen farmers here where we live in
a two mile area here, they the commission to
not only put this structure in, which has been helpful to us
but it has retained water--and has eliminated some of the
problems we had to irrigate with, and it has also kept the
water table up so we don't dry out as quickly.
But they came in and put these little wells all over
our fields for about six or seven years. And monitored
those once a week. And they learned something about water
management, complete water management
One interesting thing they found out is that half of
the--you have about half the nitrate in your water if you
hold your canals up at a moderate level, constantly don't
let it go down so low. But they have learned water
management and what they have learned here is
g
over--they tell me about twenty-five million acres
around the Great Lakes, all up and down the East Coast from
Delaware and Maryland right on down to Texas and the coastal
plains • and five million acres--we have ten million
acres of it scattered all over the United States.
And they have really done some learning that with the
information they didn't have. This was basic new research
they did in this area. And I think it has been very
helpful, and there have been people all over the United
States here looking at it. They've got records of what they
have done, and And I think they
did a good job and ••• it has certainly given them a basis
to go into other areas. They make computer modeling of
what they've done. And they can--they 1 ve this computer
model, they can take any area they want to that is similar
to this one, with a water problem ••• And they have a
basis for them where they can work.
JM: Well, you have been doing a lot of work on your
end. Did they actually put these wells on some of your
fields?
lO
Thigpen: Well ••• they drilled this little three or
four inch pipe--it was something that you just measured with
the water--the water flow and how high it was. They would
read them once a week. They had little automatic recorders
on them. They just stuck them all out in all of these
areas. They started out at ---------1 s farm, and--
they went out three thousand feet on each side. They came
through my farm and went into these trees and dug the trees,
with and went on up They went-­they
took a two square mile block and put those wells three
thousand feet on each side of the canal. Well, they are not
a well pumped water out of it--just a-------
drills, they probably put in a plastic pipe where they could
tell what the water was doing.
JM: Hassell, we've talked a lot about this project.
I've been very interested in it, too, because it drained our
farm. I notice now the canals are getting heavily
vegetated. Do you think they will have to be cleaned out
again in years to come?
Thigpen: Jo, they still need to learn something about
weed control. I don't think they'd have to be cleaned out
in a long time. Maybe in sections where the weeds are
1 1
worse, they might just have to get those weeds out every--!
don't know--five, ten, fifteen years. But ••• basically
we have canals, I think, clean enough and deep enough so,
with just a minimal amount of weed control, I believe we
will stay in business!
JM: When I was reading this article about you I was
very interested in the land improvement practices. I had
never heard about this. Tell me about that a little bit.
It says that you had done a lot to improve the land on your
farm.
Thigpen: Sometimes you do--sometimes you're not sure
that you do things, not real sure whether you have improved
it or not. We have, as you know--we have land down here
that is very favorable. It has a little sandy ridge, then
we have a little small bottom. And we found that
years ago if we would take some of this sand from the ridges
and carry it down to those dark, land, it would
make it work a lot better for growing peanuts, particularly.
It would make better soil. You have to do that pretty
careful. You can't just take the top sand off. You got to
--or either invert it and take the bottom of the land plane
or use it as a carrier--or either you have to take it and
take the top soil off and then take the subsoil. luhat I'm
saying, you want me to put the top soil back.
Well, you can improve small areas that way if you tend
to them slow. The big improvement you can do is to grade
1 2
the land and use whatever you have to so that you
make your--make out those tiny fields larger.
JM: Going back to the first thing you talked about.
Now, how do you do this, Hassell? How do you get into that
and get--do you use a machine? Did you use machinery?
Thigpen: Yeah, yeah. They used, what they call a land
plane, which is a leveling and grading tool, about forty
feet long. And use a pan and move dirt with. You just use
the available equipment to move it with. The equipment, of
course, it wasn't available twenty-five or thirty years ago.
Nobody had ever heard of it. They have a laser thing now
where you can put a laser into it automatically. But, I
wouldn't want to use that because it would cut uniformly,
and you can't take too much out--they need some top soil
what land, will work the land down
under.
JM: Now, tell them a bit more in detail about tile.
You are the first farmer I've interviewed that's mentioned
that. These people are not going to understand when we just
mention it briefly.
Thigpen: Okay, tile drainage is something that the
farmer in Edgecombe County has been doing for a long time,
now. Down where we lived our soil was so variable, I reckon
we've put in a lot of tile. And tile is a drain for low,
wet areas for. • We put in a lot of tile, at least half
of it--there's nothing to it-- build up with
14
and improvement ••• and I understand have used irrigation
from a very early stage and really tell us the very earliest
form of irrigation up to the very most modern.
Thigpen: Well, we don't have some of the most modern
stuff made but we started out with carrying thirty
foot four inch pipe on your shoulders, irrigating. • You
had to tote them across the field and you had to lay down
your pipe to get from the water source from your field. And
that was a really hard back-breaking job. Hot! You got
that hundred degree temperature and put a piece of thirty
foot pipe on your shoulder • • • and after a while your
shoulder gets sore. But we did that for a while with
tobacco and some of the peanuts and ••• we finally bought
a little hose drag that you--it's still being used by a lot
of people. And then we put in three small center pivots and
they are the easy way to irrigate. They go out in a circle.
The nice thing about it--my sandy land--we have all in
the same field, we have land that's so sandy, that you put
over seven or eight tenths of water you'll eat out your
fertilizer. And if you put more than seven or eight tenths
of water on some parts of the field it'll run off too much.
And with a center pivot you can put water more frequently
and put it less ••. and costs about the same. Whereas
your hose drag or you'll haul those wheel machines ••• you
have to get the pipe to them or hook them to a hydrate and
work with them right much by hand. There is right much hand
1 5
labor involved and fairly expensive with your having to run
the high pressure to get them •••• You find yourself
wanting to put a little much water while you're there.
JM: And I believe this center pivot is permanent? In
one area?
Thigpen: Yeah, we have one little small one that we
tow up there in another location. There's about twenty-five
acres. We do twenty-five acres in one place and we tow it
to another location; there's about twenty-five acres there.
JM: But the ones that are permanent do how many acres?
Thigpen: Well about--one does about ninety and the
other one does about ninety-five.
JM: And this is permanent. So this is one time that
you needed to use these ditches that you were talking about
that you filled in with the pipe to make your fields bigger?
Thigpen: Yeah. You either have to eliminate the
ditches or make some kind of bridge so the wheels on the
pivots will cross. I have done--one pivot I eliminated
ditching by doing some--cutting a hill down and letting the
water drain out natural and put in an underground
drain pipe Those we built were the
JM: Well, I've heard them talk about bridges but I
don't understand what they are. Is it an actual little
bridge?
Thigpen: Yeah, just like you got a bridge across the
Tar River, but these things are made with anything--you put,
1 6
you can take timber and make them, like the old-time way.
Three foot of timber makes a bridge. Dr you put in pipe.
Just like you make a bridge for farm machinery cause it's-­just
like you make a bridge--like Billy- - like your husband
has got little bridges on his farm where you drive across
the ditch. It's the same deal!
JM: You make the little bridges because it
like that?
Thigpen: Something off of the wheel
runs on them.
JM: So the wheel.
it
Thigpen: You have these little wheels that things
travel on, and wherever that wheel is going to hit that
ditch, you know, you got to make a bridge.
JM: A bridge, so it can go--and it goes in a circle?
Thigpen: Yes, it goes in a circle.
JM: Gracious sakes!
Thigpen: irrigation equipment, called
"linear" that runs in a straight line. I'd like to
have one of those. We don't have that kind of land.
JM: I bet you would! This irrigation ..• how much
improvement have you seen in the yields that you are
getting, Hassell?
Thigpen: Well, in some years it's all the difference.
Other years it's very little. It just depends on the
weather. We have more than one time doubled yields of
17
peanuts. And we more than doubled corn a year or so.
JM: Well, you have really had an opportunity to see a
big change in the way people farm from the time you got out
of college and really got involved in it.
Thigpen: It really has, Jo. It's a different ball
game.
way .
You're about to the place now, you almost need some
. Federal Crop Insurance . . is a tool some people
use. But you need some guarantee or some minimal amount of
income because it takes money to
make a crop now. You do it all with chemicals and
machinery. There's very little hand labor. You couldn't
afford it; they don't like to work to start with. It's
gotten hot so . . I really can't blame them, I guess. But
. they don't want to work. They're not available . You
have to handle the chemicals in cultivation.
Speaking about chemicals, we've backed off it all we
can and use as much cultivation as we can and less
chemicals. But, like it is now, you to
make a profit . . fewer fertilizer.
JM: Well, let's talk about that a little bit. One of
the things they're the most interested in is what caused the
drop in tenant farming. And this kind of goes with what you
just said.
Thigpen: Tenant farming . . the year that I--I have
to think about it a little bit. But tenant farming was
basically where a family would take a pair or maybe two pair
18
of mules if he had a big family ••• and he would cultivate
"X" number of acres, thirty or thirty-five acres ••• and
that's about what he could do. Then he'd do hardly any work
during the wintertime. But he had his own little crop.
And when you mechanized and when that began to get-­just
go out of being--and people began to mechanize and do
bigger crops and bigger acreage and bigger machinery • • •
it didn't leave any room for the small farmer to do that.
We got out of tobacco that way a long time--must have been
about ten years ago. But, it was good for the people and
good for us cause • • • had to
mechanize. We didn't have enough tobacco so we sold our--I
sold half of my tobacco allotment for We kept
the other half and ••• one of my neighbors is operating
that now. But we didn't have enough tobacco to justify
mechanization.
If you can 1 t--there 1 s no practical way to do all your
work with machinery and then have a man say, working on
halves with you; it just doesn't pick up that work.
JM: Just would not pay.
Thigpen: And then the fact is that they don't want to
--You can't get the people now-a-days to go into the field
and do this and keep your hand labor work.
JM: Well, don't you think industry has had some
effect, too? Providing jobs for them that they could make
more money?
1 9
Thigpen: That area has helped some. Some of them who
have lost their jobs are interested. But I expect even more
than industrial development, I expect the system of welfare
we have in this country where people can make--get a fairly
decent standard of living--food, clothing and shelter-­without
really having to work. That, I expect, more than
anything else is.
Well, on the one hand it is taking care of the people
that have been replaced by machinery. On the other hand, it
gives them very little incentive to look for a job at what
we call--what they first started to call--menial task,
menial work.
JM: It really is a hard situation to address, because
you can go at it from so many angles. As we think about all
these changes that have taken place and how life used to be
in the community . . what kind of changes do you see in
the community life from twenty or thirty years ago?
Thigpen: They're very obvious, Joan. There's just a
tremendous change. It's a way of life that is almost young.
I can illustrate, I think. • The road we live on that
runs from 33 here at--you know, we live on a loop off of
NC42 • • 1608 I believe is the number of the road. It
runs from NC33 here down at Tar River, about a mile from
Conetoe. Well, today there are only two families that live
on the farm • . Myself and E.T. Warren • • that are
living and still farming the land.
20
All the rest of this five mile stretch of road--all the
rest of the land is being operated by somebody that lives
somewhere else. If E.T. had gone, I expect I would have
left, too. Now, look back twenty or thirty years • . and
I counted one day and there were eleven families living
here, raising kids, and sending kids to school, and handling
the land.
JM: On this one road?
Thigpen: On this one road. Now that--and that was the
people that were living here and owning land. Or renting in
term one. And then, they had a lot of--at that time--tenant
farmers . • maybe, like we had--I'll have to count up
here. One.
JM: I believe you said eleven a while ago.
Thigpen: I think so, something like that. But the
people are gone • . you take any road you want to .
and the people are gone! And they're not coming back! We
went in South America winter before last and . . our field
here, as much as we've done to improve our field here, and
I'm digging it like little checkable patches . . you could
drop by a farm and and he couldn't
even find it. And. • we've got these little small fields
and people have gotten to be big. It is--the number of
people in this neighborhood could take my--take my
and just swallow it and go on with it.
JM: So, you do see the future? You think farming is
21
going to get bigger and bigger?
Thigpen: You're going to have get big or get out!
There was a day we were considered a fairly large farm.
We're now a medium-size farm and this farm is not big enough
to be as efficient as it should be.
JM: Well, you've done a mighty good job with it!
Thigpen: I think--I will comment further. We've done
most of our production for seed, peanuts, and small grain--
not corn, but peanuts, small grain and soybeans . . and
that has helped a lot. And the way we farm we are able to
do very well, but down the road it looks like to me that
they're about--they are a few people that
of you and it probably won't be but about a thousand acres;
that is, in the foreseeable future, that is, today.
JM: Well, how about livestock, Hassell? Did you ever
have any livestock?
Thigpen: Yeah! We got up to seventy cows and
I sold part of them to your husband and got out of the
business!
JM: Well, I knew you didn't stay in it very long but I
did want to.
Thigpen: We were in there near about twenty-five
years, twenty or twenty-five years.
JM: Well, I didn't realize that.
Thigpen: I like cows. We had some nice cows. Yeah,
Billy bought some of them. They were pretty cows.
JM: Through the years, how has the Extension Service
and the Soil Conservation played a part in helping you
improve your farming operation?
Thigpen: The Extension Service has the information
available • • • about anything you need to know about
farming, if you will just use it. They're very helpful.
The Soil Conservation Service had good men. Rad
Bailey, John N. Edwards, Roland Wadsworth ••• the main
22
three that come to my mind right off hand that • did an
excellent job of coming to your farm and helping you with
drainage problems ••• whatever problems you had. You have
a forester--you have help by the foresters.
The Extension Service and the Soil Conservation Service
have been very helpful in our trying to build our land up
and get our stuff in better shape.
JM: I think we've had some real good agents in our
area, too.
Thigpen: Ain't no doubt about that. We have to pay
for the staff now.
JM: Yes, we really do ••• have some really good
staff. Okay ••••
[END OF SIDE ONE, TAPE ONE]
[BEGINNING OF SIDE TWO, TAPE ONE]
JM: How do you think the relationship of country
people and people in town has changed?
23
Thigpen: I think they're better. I think that-­really,
I repeat--af course, I think it has changed for the
better. I think there is a better understanding. A lot of
people working their farm that just seeks
some awareness. I think that the people in town, the
cities, are aware of the fact of the problems farmers face
and are willing to help farmers through taxes, of you want
to put it that way. I think the changes have been for the
better, Jo. I think it's improved.
JM: Do you think this has given we country people a
better image of ourselves?
Thigpen: I never worried about that. I just--you
know ••••
JM: I know! That's a silly question to ask you!
[Chuckle!]
Thigpen: I never worried about that [Chuckle!] ••• I
just go on and do my thing and be myself. And if people
like me ••• it never bothered me, I guess.
JM: I believe you had the opportunity ••••
Thigpen: (Interposing) I do think, to answer your
question ••• a little bit further ••• I think to answer
your question is yes. There is no doubt about it!
JM: I think so. Yau never had an image problem, but
for some of the others I do think it has improved.
Thigpen: I don't believe they are even; I just never
worry about things like that.
JM: I know you served on the Board of Commissions, I
believe, for twenty-six years?
Thigpen: Almost! [Chuckle!]
JM: Almost twenty-six years.
Thigpen: Too long!
JM: And this gave you a chance to really influence
Edgecombe County. Would you tell us about that? Some of
the things, some of the projects you were involved in?
Thigpen: That's really--I like going back to one of
24
those a long time ago. But •.. I say it
was interesting. It was enjoyable, most of it, because we
had people that really--I had, I never really got out and
politicked, and try to hold the job as you know . I just
County that, they said they wanted me to
stay there a while and . the only way I would have had
that job, with no pay in it, no money it, no glory in it, a
lot of headaches. And if I hadn't had good help here at
home I couldn't have done it. pointed
out to me one day that it took a lot of time.
But the only reason for doing anything like that is to
i£1 to make--and this might sound corny in our day and
time--but ... see if you might make the County a little
bit better place to live and be. And • I was fortunate,
I had no opposition from anybody. I never promised anybody
25
anything that I wouldn't give. Just like if you would have
spoke to me and said, "How about so and so. . " My
stock answer was, "I appreciate your help but so far as what
I do I'm going to vote for what I think is best for the
County period!" I had the pleasure of doing that for almost
twenty-six years.
And we had good people on the Board. All of us needed
to be better, I guess, but we had good people that ... we
worked together. We weren't rubber stamped, we weren't
"yes" people, but ... any differences we had we would
settle that and then we'd go ahead with our business. And
we basically did what was best for the County. We helped
get industrial development. Some people might think that's
bad but over all I think it was good, because it would give
us more of a balanced economy. We got--we had a hospital up
that was millions of dollars ... we were putting about a
half a million dollars a year in the helping on the welfare
side of it. We sold that out to the HCA, which we have a
good hospital now that certainly--we've been out of the
hospital business what we did. That's one of
the last things we did. And I think one of the better
things we probably did.
I think one of the--just like all of it--I think the
thing we did that I think the people in the County really
a ppr e c ia t e d more tha n a ny one thing tha t we e ve r d i d .
was let's keep this program. I think everybody
26
liked that near about. It's been a funny thing.
But it was a long, interesting time and . . you had
problems that come up and you do the best you can!
JM: How about the Technical College, Hassell. Did you
have the opportunity through this to be in on the beginning
of that?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah. As far--you remember we started
clearing the camp out there?
JM: Uh-hummm.
Thigpen:
getting that started.
Fountain was very instrumental in
was also very
instrumental in getting this new courthouse we have. We
have a new Administrative Building, we got the Extension of
Good Homes. All the people
and I helped in the parking space.
Of course, I was really instrumental in that, because I
said, "I am not going to build down here unless we buy this
extra land and make some surface parking to take care of the
future!" I've seen no parking around the old Annex
Building.
We'd go see a County Agent and couldn't find anywhere
to park. I was adamant. I said, "That's one time I'm not
going to go along with anything with any more building like
the Administration Building unless we supply adequate
parking." Even now we have a little bit more than we need
but I know that little by little it is going to be used more
and more. And the County government, I reckon is going to
keep on growing; if it does we'll need them all one day.
27
But Edgecombe County is in good shape in relation to
buildings. Your children will be older than we are before-­or
as old as I am--before we will need more space, I expect.
Maybe not even then!
JM: Well • elaborate a little bit more on the
Technical College.
Thigpen: Well the Technical College is kind of like
farming. You know, we didn't even have one and then we
started out there with, you know, it just stayed on that
prison camp out there and • • they sold us that real cheap
and whatever. It wasn't much money and we renovated some of
the buildings and built a little bit. And they started
expanding. And with the change in the work styles--that's
not a good word, not what you expected--but the way
everything is so technical involved--one industry going out
and another one coming in •••• The Technical College has
been, the last several years, and I expect maybe
increasingly--it is very necessary for the community if the
people are going to live and be able to change jobs and get
a better job. I think it's been very helpful.
JM: When the Technical College was first started, was
it in Rocky Mount?
Thigpen: That was in Tarboro. All the--the old prison
camp, we started out at the old prison camp with--we'd
renovated one of those buildings.
28
I think it's still being
used and I believe built one if my memory.
JM: They used some houses.
the houses out there.
I believe you used some of
Thigpen: Yeah, I think so. And it started, then
little bit by little big enlarged. And of course, you know,
the Rocky Mount stores--they would have really gone all out
over there.
JM: I believe you had a special honor. Was it in
1971?
Thigpen: That was a long time ago!
JM: That's the best I can figure out. Was that the
year you and your family were chosen "National Farm Family?''
Thigpen: It's been a lot longer than that! Because--I
remember Daddy was living then.
time.
He has been dead a long
JM: I couldn't figure out from the information.
Thigpen: It must have been at least--it was right
after this house was first built, remodeled or whatever we
did to it. It must have been at least twenty-five years
ago. But we were honored by the Progressive Farmer and the
Extension Services. I think they called it "National Farm
Family" or something like that. They had to pick on
somebody, you know!
JM: Well, you're an humble man and you don't like-­Hassell
doesn't like to tell of how many honors that he has
won but I'm not going to let him leave out that! I
remember, they had ••••
Thigpen: That was appreciated! It was nice. And we
appreciated it!
JM: Hassell has worked hard!
Thigpen: I agree with that! [Chuckle!]
29
JM: I believe in the article that they had--Mr. Powell
said that "There's an old adage that there's more in the man
than in the land!" And as I have talked to Hassell I've
certainly thought about that. Because he's used every way
to improve himself.
Thigpen: Yeah, like Jack told me one time,
"You've got to work a little harder down here to make a
living than you did anywhere in the County." We've got good
soil. In fact, Jack said, "It's like ••• if let up
the crops wouldn't be any good •
We had good land!" [Chuckle!] we
labored!
JM: You think maybe having to work hard has not been
bad for you?
Thigpen: Naw! Hard work never hurt nobody! Worrying
about things hurt! But ••• we have had the--we 1 ve
probably had to use a little higher level of management and
has a little better weather. And after irrigation, with
someone like me working and paying • cause way down here
in our sandy soil, you know, where you really got to--if I
30
had all really good land I'm not sure, judging the future by
the past, that irrigation is very profitable. But I know
the kind of land we have down here, it is going to pay off.
JM: You spoke about that you were involved in
certified seed ••• these people that listen to this tape
are really not going to know what you mean by that. Would
you mind elaborating on that a bit?
Thigpen: North Carolina has two agencies that work
with but not a part of North Carolina State University. One
of them is called North Carolina Foundation of Seed
Producers. They take the seed that--new varieties--! mean
brand new varieties • They take the breeder right out
for those seeds developed by plant breeders at State up here
and also other parts of the Southeast • • • and increase
those seeds. They take a breeder seed and they make what
they call a foundation seed; then that goes into the regular
seed, and then that goes into all these different yields, it
goes into a certified seed which is what most farmers plant.
After they certify it one year then it goes back to just
being a seed and you can still plant it if you want to. But
the people go back and get this, you know, close into the
breeding.
Then they have the North Carolina Crop Improvement
Association. This year is the They check
the stuff in the field to be sure it's pure, not mixed up,
quality there. Then they check the trade
31
product. So people are saying, "We used to trade ourselves
certified seed." We don't much anymore. I do most of my
growing now for the Foundation Seed people which is--well, I
take their breeder crops and increase them or I take their
foundation seed which makes the worst seed • • • which is
what people that, like--they have a sign out here--if you
wanted to have peanuts grown either by a regular seed
they have them. The farmers grow them or grow them
themselves and make what they call "certified" seed.
that's what the farmer will buy in Edgecombe.
And
JM: Well, do you have to have any special practices in
your farming to be qualified to do this?
Thigpen: Experience helps. You have to watch
rotation. You have to watch very closely.
They have strict tolerances. Like peanuts; you have to have
a three-year rotation at least or else plant the same
variety. You don't have purity. And in all that effort is
made to--the two organizations do a good job state wide of
getting the farmers in North Carolina a good seed.
Now, private companies, especially if they--they did a
patent law in Washington a few years ago • • • are doing a
tremendous amount of dev e loping seed, and I e xpe c t a s f ar a s
the public land. And that's more
and more private plant breeders now. And they handle their
own stuff in drawing the contract; t hey're doing themselves
or what have you. It's big business. It's going into big
business now. There are several farmers in the state that
have way over ten thousand acres of seed,
JM: But you don't have to actually do anything about
the pollination ••••
32
Thigpen: I do nothing about that. I get--I take the
seed that they bring me ••• maybe fifty pounds, maybe for
five thousand or whatever • and increase those seed.
Our responsibility is to keep them clean and pure!
JM: And keep the weeds out of them!
Thigpen: I mean keep them clean. I'm thinking about
pure in relation to a variety of mixtures. Of course, you
have to do a good job of growing your crop. You do that
normally but you have the further responsibility; you have
to keep up with them ••• to make maps and you got to know
where you planted the row. You have to follow this very
closely. It's a little extra management detail, but it's
worth the trouble.
JM: I believe you said in your present farming
operation you were working how many men?
Thigpen: Well, about five people is what it amounts
to.
JM: And you're still ••• "The Chief!" You still
take a very active part in your farming operation?
Thigpen: Yeah, more or less. More I guess rather than
less.
JM: Do you still drive a tractor and ••••
Thigpen: A little bit, sometimes. I still do
things, like the land playing, working
some
33
and I cultivate some things now, of course. I don't do one
hundredth of what I used to do.
JM: But you still enjoy getting up on a tractor?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah! I think--I like to land plane in
the wintertime when you are leveling and grading • • • I do
it with my eyes, mostly, work. I work,
you know, with the big bucks we have sometimes and •
Also • • • like the other week we got--everybody was busy so
I cultivated about a half a day's I still
like to do it. I don't do it that much. You know, when you
get old you'll see, you'll find out in a few years!
JM: Well, when you have moved into mechanization--Now,
you're using five men and how many tractors do you use in
your farm, Hassell?
Thigpen: We have--there are two large ones, three
medium-sized, and
are
there's seven tractors. Two of them
300, about thi r ty, thirty-five
years old. I still use those for little odd, piddling
work. We have two big, heavy tractors that we do our area
planting and land preparation. We have three
medium-sized tractors that do our cultivating, peanut
plowing and stuff like that. Peanut plowing
34
JM: Are you doing most of your work now four-row?
Thigpen: Yeah. We haven't gone to six-row. I debated
going to six-row. I probably won't--I'll probably keep on
four-row. Six-row will--we are borderline big enough for
six-row to be efficient . . but we get by pretty well with
four rows so we probably are going to stick with it.
get older you don't want to change too much!
As you
JM: I believe I read something that you were doing a
little bit of "no-till" planting. Is that correct?
Thigpen: Yeah, we do some no-till planting. A lot of
people are doing that. No-till has a lot of advantages; it
has a lot of disadvantages. I don't think we need to stress
it here but . . it's better in some ways. You have to use
more chemicals. You have to discern or you don't get
control of some grass and weed like you
would in cultivating it. And we , low-till on a
limited basis. Let's put it that way.
JM: It does help conserve moisture not to till the
land?
Thigpen: Yeah, that helps some. Of course, after it
gets dry--no-till has a lot of advantages and some
disadvantages . . are made with the seed and everything, I
started using it on a limited basis • maybe like ten or
fifteen of land a year.
JM: You would never do your certified seed that way?
Thigpen: Well, it depends on what the worst--soybeans,
35
yeah.
JM: Well, when you do it, do you spray and till the
area that you're going to plant in and turn it brown? I've
seen some that.
Thigpen: I'm going to get in the dog-house right now
because we still burn our straw! It's not without due
thought . . we have disease on some of my land and • . I
had camp authority, the soybean man from State College come
down .
State!
. North Carolina State University, excuse me,
Years ago, some years ago we were having a weed
problem and . . I don't like to burn. We
terribly, but we do burn our--most of the time, not
all of the time • . most of the time we burn our oats and
wheat and barley straw. It's--actually, all
pick up your very best by that
particular way of handling it. But it eliminates the risk
of disease and • . it cuts application
quite a bit when you do that.
JM: Well, we talk about yields.
Thigpen: I don't recommend people to burn. It's
I was , we do need the organic
~~~~~~~~~~~
but we can make more, a lot better yield and a lot less
disease • • and probably everything was several years
better off in the long run for people around here. Of
course, I wouldn't do it if I didn't think so.
JM: All the new tractors that we have talked about,
tell us a little bit about how this has increased your
yields.
36
Thigpen: I reckon the basic yield increase has come
from the plant fields that have produced a plant that would
just naturally yield more, if you treat it properly. And
then you . a lot of little things you do that help
increase your yield. Like you put a little
on peanuts,
for at
your You spray them
It's just a lot of little
things you do that increase your yield. But the foundation
for that was a seed that is paid for in producing a bigger
crop.
JM: Talking about the yield, how much •.. how do you
increase--talk about peanuts. How much of the yields have
increased in peanuts? I know in that article about you it
was twenty-one . • • I believe you were making twenty-one
hundred pounds when you were "National Farmer.'' And that
was really high.
Thigpen: That was high then and we have made as high
now--I'm talking about the farm average, not just ~field
but the farm average. We have been running--the last
se vera l year s --we've be en running the l as t s ev eral yea r s - ­well,
it must have ..• forty-five hundred pounds,
sometimes thirty-eight hundred •...
JM: I believe you s a id you had in c re ased you r peanut
yield to up as high as forty-five hundred pounds?
37
Thigpen: Yeah. Farm average. That would not have
been possible with the varieties. When I said "started
farming," if you made fifteen or sixteen hundred, you had a
good crop. And until they somewhere it, I
don't remember, somewhere in the forties they had their
first improved peanut. I think it started out the NC-2, I
believe. But without these improved varieties we could not
grow the yields we do now. You would not make the yield we
do now unless you did a lot of practices . . because you
improved fertilization, long on fertilization. . And a
lot of cultural and chemical practices. • But basically,
you can't make--you have to have a good seed, high yield of
seed to make a high yielding crop.
JM: This, too, has increased the expense of planting
because these seed are much more expensive, aren't they?
Thigpen: Oh, yeah! Of course, the price of peanuts
has gone up. That's probably the basic • . reason.
Peanuts have gone up from one cent to a pound to about
thirty cents a pound.
JM: Well, it's been around the same price for a right
good while, though, haven't they?
Thigpen: Yeah, they They do about
seventy percent of the yield now. There ain't no difference
. slight increase.
JM: And in soybeans, how do you see the yields. How
much have they increased? I know you haven't planted
38
soybeans as long as you have peanuts.
Thigpen: When I first started farming we had a little
combine. We pulled it tractor. I would go all
over this end of the County cutting beans for people. And
talking about what way we were in • . I would charge a man
two dollars an acre and one eighth of the soybeans. A total
then • . if he had a field that made fourteen or sixteen
bushels he would feel pretty lucky. He might make fifteen
or twenty dollars a day if he was lucky. And that was real
money then!
But the soybean yields now • . we have averaged as
high as forty bushels two or three times in the last ten
years, over the whole farm. We made it as high
fields, maybe in the fifties . • but, whenever we had--the
first year we'd make--most years we would make anywhere from
thirty to thirty-five • . Well, we plant most of our beans
now. So that's a strike against you. They
don't yield much as the other one • But we can
hope to make forty bushels. • I think we've averaged
forty bushels twice only in the last ten years.
been as low as twenty-five or thirty,
here.
And we have
JM: And how about corn? Are you still planting corn?
Thigpen: Yeah. Corn, if you can irrigate it proper l y,
of cour s e • • where you us ed to make--I don't know wha t we
made way back there, practically nothing, maybe twenty-five
39
bushels . . back there in the thirties or forties. But
now if you irrigate corn and you irrigate it properly, and
have good weather, you can make a hundred and fifty or
seventy-five bushels, and we've done that. We used to make
more than that. Some people do but . • I know if we have
a hundred and sixty-seven bushels here from the field, we're
pretty happy.
JM: Right. Well, like you said before, your land
doesn't have that deep fertility.
Thigpen: We don't have basic good corn land. But
we've had • . I remember, without irrigation, we didn't
ever make over a hundred bushels for average. And since
we've had irrigation we've done substantially better than
that. Sometimes I make, like a hundred and forty average or
something.
JM: So you.
Thigpen: We don't irrigate
trying to say.
corn is what I'm
JM: But you do irrigate corn, peanuts and soybeans?
Thigpen: And cotton.
JM: And cotton! I had forgotten about cotton! But
you are growing cotton.
Thigpen: And even sometimes • • let me explain it
this way, Jo. Corn at the price it is now and soybeans and
small grain • . you cannot afford to buy irrigation
equipment for them. They will not pay for it. But •
40
peanuts and cotton and tobacco •.• if you want to irrigate
tobacco, cure tobacco. Tobacco and peanuts come near
paying for irrigation better than anything else we have.
And corn is good but after you've got irrigation, then you
use it for whatever, since you are able •.• or on whatever
crop you might have on that land that year.
JM: You're going back to management now.
Thigpen: Right!
JM: You try to get everything out of it that you
possibly can.
Thigpen: Right!
JM: Can you think of anything else now that you might
like to discuss?
Thigpen: I was thinking while ago about the ..•
about how life was way back there. This man operating
down there. I told him what I was doing. He
said, "I'd like to sit down; I like to hear people talk
about these days way back there." And ••• it does go
back. It is a different, completely different ball game.
People had no money then. And I think most people
they sure were more satisfied than they are today ••
They don't have everything pulling at them. People don't--
you keep on a human being, don't take all the
time .•• and see what--I almost think, watching the
national news on TV ••• and normally it will be--we have
~
41
JM: Well, this is one thing I had especially wanted us
to bring out in these interviews. I'm really glad you
brought that out • • • is that we were happy back in those
days! We didn't have any money but we were happy!
Thigpen: Maybe we just didn't know any better!
JM: Well, maybe •••.
Thigpen: And, basically everybody was broke!
JM: But we did a lot of things for fun!
Thigpen: And see • when I first started up, you
didn't even have radios for a long time, much less
television! Television is what? Twenty-five, thirty years
old? It's a new thing! You had ..• it was, for people
that lived back in the rural areas •.. we'd get to town
once a week, which was a treat for most people!
JM: Right!
Thigpen: When I was a kid I didn't go to town much!
JM: My daddy used to put the trailer behind the car
and put seats on it •.• take all the colored folks to town
on Saturday, and that was a big trip for the week!
Thigpen: It's right interesting. We went down to
Brazil in the area • • • a year ago last
February .•• and most of the tobacco ••. people tobacco
farming in Brazil--that whole area on our consensus, because
a bunch of these farmers talked about it ••• they are now
just about like Edgecombe County was in 1940! Here in 1987,
1986, the people--the tobacco farmers in Brazil, they cure
42
with wood. They are just beginning to get electricity out
at some places. They are just beginning to get water in
some places. They are just beginning to get transportation.
Some of them are still breaking their land with ox. Some
people carry their tobacco to market with an ox. We saw
these things! That's 1986 I'm talking about!
JM: And we can't compete with the expenses that we
have farming.
Thigpen: Oh! They think if they are making--they make
anywhere from thirty to a hundred dollars a month on farm
wages down there • • • depending on what kind of work they
are in. And they have a lot of land ..•. But, we think
here with all the advantages we have now and the things-­paved
roads, everything--and we just take things for
granted. But it really was--it kind of shook me up a little
bit to go down there in the country ••. in some ways they
are as modern as ••
JM: Well, how many allotments •.. can they plant all
of anything .•.•
Thigpen: About anything they want to ••• and
Government encourages it. They got plenty of land.
the
They
got plenty of land already opened up. We opened up two
hundred mile acres for tenant labor. And their soil is
good! And they process good tobacco. We got a picture of
it her e . I showed two weeks ago.
And it's just incredible! But the pattern is--the big
farmer down there is mechanized just like it is here!
don't have the , they have railroads.
~~~~~~~~~-
43
They
But,
the tobacco farmer down there . • his life is just about
like Edgecombe County was in 1940. They are just beginning
to get out a little bit.
JM: Well, now, as we kinda put this all together .
what do you see as the future for agriculture?
Thigpen: I think agriculture in Edgecombe County, if
they can teach a program that will let our tobacco--and I
think we will be growing tobacco in the future--and our
peanuts and our cotton • • be priced as they are now,
which is somewhat on a path in line with simply the American
standard of living . . we can make a good living! With
the price of corn and soybeans and small grain the last two
or three years • . there's no way that you can survive .
We have the Government subsidy program that is not going to
keep on and those crops will not be--you could not grow them
without it. You actually lose money. There's very little
to be made in them as it is now.
So whether Edgecombe County here in Eastern Carolina
survives down the road, in my judgement is going to be-­we've
got to compete because we are going--naturally, we are
talking about all of the world.
survive is going to depend on how we,
with other areas in the country .
And whether we
our land, stacks up
how much--the policy
of the American Government is going to determine whether we
44
survive here and whether we can survive--that policy of the
American Government is going to want "X" number of bushels
and pounds of crops.
Whether we will still be growing them or not, it
depends on our ability to compete with other States of the
United States. Jo, that's what I really think! I'm not
that all sure where we are going to come out in this thing.
There are areas in the United States, you can make a hundred
and fifty bushels of corn with no irrigation. You got
to make forty or fifty or sixty bushels a day . . and we
can't compete for that. But the Government is going to help
us! The Government is going to guarantee thirty or thirty­five
or cheat the American public. And, if we can keep
things like tobacco and peanuts and cotton that we can grow
about as good as anybody. . Now, we have it totally
under control • • I think we have a good chance to have a
viable export. Without it • • I don't know!
JM: Well, what do you see for yourself? Do you feel
you will continue to farm as long as you want to?
Thigpen: Well, for me, I'm happy. To put it simply,
I'm happy. We've had some problems that you know about.
I'm happier working and as long as I'm physically able and
reasonably mentally competent, I will probably keep on
working • • rather than just turn it over to somebody
else. I'm kinda peculiar. I like my work done kind of like
I want it! Have it neat and clean! And I just as soon be
in it as to turn it over to somebody else. In fact, I'd
rather.
JM: Well, you've always had a reputation for keeping
everything in its place. Can you really find things that
good that you need? Do you know where your stuff is?
Thigpen: Most of, most of the time!
JM: Most of the time! Well, you're real lucky that
you do!
Thigpen: It's simple. It's about as easy to keep
stuff straight as it is to straighten it up two or three
times a year! There is not much difference in the work
involved! All you need--
don't have too many bushes and have a good mowing machine
and you can keep a lot of stuff straight!
JM: Well, you have been lucky to have all your stuff
right together!
Thigpen: We all farmed--that ought to be mentioned.
45
What little expensive land I bought ..• the furthest land
I have away from where I live is about two and one half
miles. And that's facilitates farming. It helps a lot.
JM: Makes it a lot easier when you can get out and see
it all pretty quickly.
Thigpen: It sure makes a difference. You get to it
with a machine in a hurry. It makes a big difference.
JM: Well, I sure do appreciate you taking your time
out of this busy morning. And I know this information is
..
46
going to mean a whole lot to people. Can you think of
anything else now, before we close our interview?
Thigpen: No, Jo, I think this is good work they're
doing. I would think that these tapes you've been making
will be interesting to a lot of people down the road
someday. I hope so!
JM: Well, thank you again for letting me come to your
house!
Thigpen: "Dkay-doe-ky," lady!
[ENO OF INTERVIEW]
Interviewee:
Interviewer:
Hassell Thigpen
Joan Manning
Date: July 21, 1987
According to the records from a family book all the grandparents as well
as Bettie Daniel and Clayton Thigpen attended private schools but I do
lqlow.the number of years . They attended Wilkerson Academy in Tarboro,
Williamston Academy, Tarboro Female Academy and Clayton Thigpen also
attended Davis Military School , Winston-~alem, N.C.